3 down - 3 to go

We are half way through the chemo treatments . . . we hope. The initial treatment was to be for six months. Still hoping that is all it takes.

Our trip was a little better than last month.

We met with Dr Tumlin on Monday at 8:15 a.m. While he was pleased with the progress of Lori's labs he also discussed another treatment in case this one does not work. It is called Rituxan. http://www.gene.com/gene/products/information/oncology/rituxan/index.jsp He called it an "out of the box" treatment for Lori's condition. He did say that we would complete the six months of Cytoxin treatments before we tried this next one. Hopefully the Cytoxin will work. The monthly trips are already getting tiresome.

After the Dr appt. we went to the hospital to get checked in. The lady at the registration counter recognized us and had our paperwork ready when we got to the desk. She is really nice. She told Lori she looked better than she did last month. She got us checked in and to the CIU (care initiation unit) room right away. This is where they start any procedures while waiting for a regular hospital bed. It seems to be a pretty good setup to keep you from sitting in a lobby waiting for a bed.

Everything went rather quickly form there. This was a good thing. The entire course of treatment takes 13 to 14 hours from the time they start the IV. Since we wanted to leave after the treatment was finished we were glad things were going quickly.

Lori got her chemo at around 5:00. It had the same effect as the previous two times, skin color change, burning feeling through her veins, and then getting hot. We tried to keep her from getting too hot with wet cool rags over the next few hours. This time she slept for most of the day. (I think she was tired from getting ready for Mike's party.) The treatment was completed right around midnight. We told the nurse we wanted to check out right away, called the valet for the car, and headed out.

Getting back to the hotel room to sleep the night seemed to work. Lori would typically get too hot in the hospital bed (plastic sheets and pillows didn't help). She did not get nauseous at all that night or in the morning. She did wake up with the same killer headache she had experienced previously. After some breakfast we decided to hit the road a bit earlier than planned.

Since Lori was doing better than we had hoped we went all the way to Lake City before stopping for the night. Not a moment too soon either. In fact we probably should have stopped in Georgia. Lori was declining pretty fast. We went to the Holiday Inn - no rooms. WHAT!?! OK . . . not panicking we went to the Hampton - no rooms. Still not panicking but really beginning to worry. We next tried the Quality Inn - no rooms. (OK . . . panic time). Fortunately for us there was a very nice lady at the Quality Inn. I told her of our dilemma and asked if Lori could sit in her lobby while I figured out what to do. She said Lori could sit there as long as she needed to. I escorted Lori in from the car and she went right to the restroom (let the nausea begin). After she was through I got her to a chair in the lobby. The lady at the desk said she had found us a room and had the hotel on the phone. (Thank you nice lady)

Ten minutes later we were in our room at the Best Western. It turns out there was some kind of Water School going on for municipalities of the state to attend. 700 rooms were being used. We were lucky we found a nice room for ourselves.

Lori only got sick a couple of times. She was well enough later that evening to eat. We slept until around 10:00 the next morning and then got on the road again. She felt just so-so and was beginning to get the achy pains she had last month.

Again she was turning bad fast. We made it home around 2:00. She pretty much passed out on the couch as soon as we got home. As the day went on she felt worse. She ate only a small Blizzard from Dairy Queen (mmmm. . . blizzard).

Today she woke up feeling pretty crappy. Very sore all over and zero energy. Hopefully she will start feeling better in the next couple of days. After all - we start it all again in just three short weeks.